Jewish Peace News (JPN) is an information service that circulates news clippings, analyses, editorial commentary, and action alerts concerning the Israel / Palestine conflict. We work to promote a just resolution to the conflict; we believe that the cause of both peace and justice will be served when Israel ends the occupation, withdrawing completely from the Palestinian territories and finding a solution to the Palestinian refugee crisis within the framework of international law.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine -RToP - "is an international people's tribunal, created in 2009 as a response to the failure of the international community to act appropriately to bring to an end Israel's recognised violations of international law. In particular, the organisers of the RToP were very concerned by the inadequate international response to the Advisory Opinion of July 9, 2004, of the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on the legal consequences of the establishment of a wall in the occupied Palestinian territories - which called for the wall to be dismantled and which reiterated the need to respect past resolutions of the United Nations."

"Following the first two sessions that took place in March 2010 in Barcelona (focusing on EU complicity) and in November 2010 in London (focusing on corporate complicity), the third international session will take place in Cape Town, South Africa and will focus on the topic: "Are Israeli practices against the Palestinian people in breach of the prohibition against apartheid under International Law?".

"A Fourth and final session, due to take place in 2012 in the US, will focus on possible UN and US complicity in Israel's violations of international law."

The article below provide a historical background to how these tribunals came about, as well as on the particular goals the RToP aims to achieve.

Racheli Gai.

Frank Barat: Do Israeli policies constitute apartheid?

A citizens' tribunal will examine whether or not Israel is violating international law's prohibition on apartheid.

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) is a citizens' initiative that is sustained by contributions from individuals, associations, organisations and solidarity movements. Its independence relies on the great variety of volunteers and on the material and financial help it receives from multiple sources.Thanks to a network of National Support Committees (Spain, United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Italy and Portugal), two successful evidence sessions have taken place in Barcelona (March 2010) and London (November 2010), creating a significant impact on the audiences and receiving considerable media attention. At the time of writing, preparations are in hand for two further sessions, first in Cape Town (November 2011), where the focus will be on the crime of apartheid, and a final session in 2012 in the US, which will focus on possible UN and US complicity in Israel's violations of international law.From the experience of past Russell Tribunals - on US military intervention in Vietnam (1966-1967) and internal repression (with outside interference) in Latin America (1973-1975), and judging from the conclusions of the first two sessions of the RToP, it is clear that findings of the tribunal provide a legally grounded body of arguments, constituting an important tool to be used by those who seek to ensure respect for the rule of international law, and the rights of the Palestinian people.The RToP is an international people's tribunal, created in 2009 as a response to the failure of the international community to act appropriately to bring to an end Israel's recognised violations of international law. In particular, the organisers of the RToP were very concerned by the inadequate international response to the Advisory Opinion of July 9, 2004, of the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on the legal consequences of the establishment of a wall in the occupied Palestinian territories - which called for the wall to be dismantled and which reiterated the need to respect past resolutions of the United Nations.International law is very clear when it comes to Israel/Palestine, and should be at the core of any negotiations. Many UN resolutions (181, 194, 242, 338, 1322, 1397 and 1435) call for a State of Palestine to be established, while the right to self-determination was at the heart of the Advisory Opinion. The Advisory Opinion also placed a strong emphasis on the duties of third-party states to ensure that the Palestinians are able to exercise their right of self-determination.Indeed, the International Court of Justice went on to articulate the duty that states have to bring to an end the practical and legal consequences of the wall (and by clear implication any other established systematic violations of Palestinian human rights).Despite the ICJ's Advisory Opinion, the Court's above injunction has yet to be acted upon: The wall is planned to be 810 kilometres long, but whereas around 300 kilometres had been constructed in 2004, by the summer of 2010 it was already at least 520km long (ie: almost two-thirds complete).Background to the RToPThe RToP stems from a long history of popular tribunals dating back to 1966 with the establishment, by Lord Bertrand Russell and French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, of the Russell Tribunal on Vietnam. The inaugural people's tribunal investigated US foreign policy and its military intervention in Vietnam. The extent of US aggression was little known at the time by the general public and the tribunal, through its detailed analysis and thorough testimonies, helped engender a well-informed and enormous peace movement that, from the late 1960s, made the continued US intervention in Vietnam more and more difficult. The Russell Tribunal on Vietnam had a very positive effect on US university campuses and highlighted the hypocrisy and lies of the US government at the time. Sessions were held in Sweden and Denmark.This was followed in the mid-1970s by the Russell Tribunal on Latin America. After examining the US war against Vietnam, a war of aggression, the second people's tribunal this time focused on the internal wars waged by military juntas all over Latin America. One crucial historical event led to the creation of the second Russell Tribunal, namely the coup that removed Chile's socialist President, Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973. On this day, fighter jets bombed Chile's capital city, Santiago, and destroyed La Moneda Palace. This coup was led by General Pinochet but was financed, planned and executed with CIA support.Pinochet established the first military junta in Latin America. A few years later, most Latin American countries were governed by repressive military regimes. Dissent was not authorised, torture became widespread, the number of political prisoners grew by thousands, and thousands more simply vanished. They became known as "the desaparecidos" - the disappeared.The tribunal was chaired by Hortensia Bussi de Allende, Salvador Allende's wife, and took place in Brussels and Rome. It led to the creation of the Permanent People's Tribunal in Rome in 1979.

On March 4, 2009, more than 35 years after the Tribunal on Latin America and a few weeks after the end of "Operation Cast Lead" (Israel's assault on Gaza, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including hundreds of women and children), a press conference in Brussels, chaired by the Tribunal's general coordinator Pierre Galand, launched the RToP. Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Stephane Hessel, Jean Ziegler, Raji Sourani, Leila Shahid, Nurit Peled-Elhanan and the late Ken Coates explained to an audience composed mainly of local and international press, as well as various European political figures, why the Russell Tribunal on Palestine was needed and why such a tribunal could, by its nature, have a very powerful and lasting impact on public opinion.The RToP proceedings, which comprise a number of sessions, deal with different aspects of the complicity and responsibilities of states, international organisations and corporations in the ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel and the perpetuation of the violations of international law committed by Israel. They also aim to highlight the continuity and comprehensiveness of Israeli policies that appear to have the ultimate aim of preventing the exercise of Palestinian self-determination.The tribunal is also interested in empowering civil society and reinforcing the work of already existing campaigns by providing additional legal arguments and ideas that will assist in future litigation and legal lobbying. Most people outside the region do not realise the profound domestic legal consequences of the Israel-Palestine conflict. By actively providing Israel with financial, political, military and even moral support, governments, international organisations and corporations make the resolution of this conflict impossible. They are deeply involved in the fact that, more than six decades since it was raised, the Palestine question is still waiting for an answer.The sessionsFollowing the first two sessions that took place in March 2010 in Barcelona (focusing on EU complicity) and in November 2010 in London (focusing on corporate complicity), the third international session will take place in Cape Town, South Africa and will focus on the topic: "Are Israeli practices against the Palestinian people in breach of the prohibition against apartheid under International Law?".While the title seems complicated for most people, the session will in look into very simple things: facts.A stellar cast (including Alice Walker, Mairead Maguire, Michael Mansfield, Ronnie Kasrils, Stephane Hessel, Yasmin Sooka, Aminata Traore, Jose Antonio Martin Pallin and Gisele Halimi) will overlook the proceedings, acting as the jury, and after hearing more than 20 witnesses and legal experts over two days, will issue an opinion or recommendation.This session will go back to the roots of the conflict and, taking place in one of the most symbolic venues of South Africa, the District 6 museum, will bring a human perspective to the work of the tribunal.The session will be opened by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a key figure of the resistance against apartheid South Africa, who has since then been active in defence of human rights and the oppressed all over the world.Then the audience will hear from people that lived during apartheid South Africa, such as Winnie Mandela, John Dugard, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Ran Greenstein, Max Du Plessis and Zwelinzima Vavi (the Secretary General of the Congress of South African Trade Unions). Those people will give an overview of what was life under a white nationalist regime that thought of other people as lesser people.The focus will of course mainly be on Israel/Palestine. Some key people, both Israelis and Palestinians, will give the jury a reality check of what the situation on the ground is. Lawyers and international law specialists such as Lea Tsemel, Emily Schaeffer, Mahmoud Hassan and Raji Sourani will explain where the law stands when it comes to Israel/Palestine.They will be followed by people that will talk about the facts, something often forgotten in this conflict. Jeff Halper will talk about house demolitions and the matrix of control that the Israeli government has put in place, over the years, to suffocate the Palestinians. Activists such as Jamal Juma'a, Rafeef Ziadah, Mohammed Khatib, Jazi Abu Kaf, Shawqi Issa and Ingrid Jaradat Gassner will talk about resistance and what the people on the ground are doing to fight Israeli policies. Parliamentarian Haneen Zoabi will talk about the pressure she faced for exercising her freedom of speech and about the Palestinian citizens of Israel.Finally, international legal specialists, such as Rafaelle Maison, Francois Dubuisson, David Keane, Luciana Coconi and Joseph Schechla will put the session in the context of international humanitarian law and various international conventions (including the fourth Geneva Conventions).The whole exercise will therefore give the jury, the audience, and the media an exhaustive overview of the past, the present and what is possible in terms of legal actions and civil society resistance in the future.Because the future is ours.

Frank Barat is a human rights activist and coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.He has edited two books: Gaza in Crisis (Haymarket/Penguin) with Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe, and Corporate Complicity in Israel's Occupation (Pluto Press) with Asa Winstanley.

To follow the Russell Tribunal South African session, including a live stream, follow the Tribunal on Facebook: facebook.com/russelltribunal

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Dear readers,The Mondoweiss piece was planned to be sent out a while ago. Because of technical difficulties it has not happened until now. Which might be for the best, since as of yesterday a youtube video of the event described in the piece by Philip Weiss (and commented on by Ofer and myself) became available. A link for it is enclosed below.

Racheli.

The relationship between American Jews and Israel is complex. On the one hand, numerous members of the former group tend to regard support of Israel as a major constituent of their Jewish identity (perhaps even the glue that holds them together), and Israelis as their Protégés. On the other hand, Israelis are also perceived as those proud sabras who have shaken off the chains of diaspora. Therefore, when Israelis address a Jewish community abroad (a tribal gathering of sorts), and testify about Israel's violations of human rights , it can be expected that the audience will be attentive towards their message.

At a recent discussion of the 'boycott Israel' question in New York, Israeli activist and lecturer Dr. Dalit Baum, and Israeli filmmaker Udi Aloni had the opportunity to stand in front of hundreds of concerned Jews, and tell them in no uncertain terms that Israel is inflicting hell on innocent civilians on a regular basis. In the following piece, journalist Phil Weiss, who has strong convictions on the issue, relays his thoughts about the event.

This event, the first in a NYC synagogue to discuss Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and if not the first of its kind in the US, was probably one of the first to bring up this issue from a viewpoint of people who support it (to varying degrees) in such a setting.

With Jewish Federation money going to shore up opposition to open discussion of BDS - except for the purpose of tearing it down - there are certainly hurdles to overcome before such events are seen in many other places, within Jewish communities.

Still, serious cracks are showing up in the cement walls of ignorance and prejudice most US Jewish organizations and communities are wrapped in. If we learned anything from the Arab Spring, it's the fact that what seems insurmountable one day, might crumble to the ground when we least expect it. This should give us some hope, and keep us at work.

Friday, September 23, 2011

David Shasha publishes a weekly newsletter called Sephardic Heritage Update. The commentary below has been written for SHU, and David agreed to let me use it here, as a preface for the video clip "Where is Sa'adya?"

Racheli Gai.

The KEDMA website which is devoted to presenting issues of importance to the Arab Jewish community in Israel has just posted a very important video that presents a TV News report containing clips from a shocking 1951 Israeli propaganda movie called "Saadia: Roots of the Homeland." The original film was rediscovered by Jacob Gross and has been presented in the Jerusalem Cinemateque. The news report that has been posted and which can be viewed with English sub-titles presents both a deeply disconcerting back and forth with a group that was invited to watch the film.

The bits of the original movie that are shown in the news report are themselves quite nauseating in their paternalism and outright racism towards Jewish immigrants from the Arab world. The Sephardic inhabitants of the "Ma'abarot" – the tent camps that were hastily constructed for the new immigrants and which bred filth, disease, and crime among its inhabitants – are shown to be ignorant, primitive, and backward people. Barely human, they are shown as requiring the enlightenment of the morally and intellectually superior Ashkenazim who is presented as their saviors.

For those who question the existence of a malignant anti-Sephardi racism in the Zionist culture of the state's early days, and the complicity of the Sephardim themselves in rationalizing and justifying this racism over the course of many years, the news report is striking evidence that there has been a profound and deep denial of this racist Ashkenazi-centric ethos by both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Israelis alike.

The clip includes some very incisive commentary from our good friend Yehouda Shenhav. I have taken the liberty of attaching my review essay on his excellent book The Arab Jews which I strongly recommend to all of our SHU readers. It explains in painstaking detail many of the central issues raised in the short video clip.

In these days of ideological contentiousness regarding Israel and Zionism and the Divine role in this history, it is critical that we as Sephardim take a long and hard look at how the founding the Jewish state was deeply antagonistic to our own socio-cultural and political interests as a community. Sephardim in Israel have seen their ancestral heritage and cultural traditions become eviscerated by an intolerable Ashkenazi hegemony that, as the original 1951 film shows clearly, has had only contempt for us as human beings and as Jews and which has forced us to abandon our cultural inheritance through erasure.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

I chose to send this article because it doesn't cover only this particular event, but is giving background information and is putting this cancellation of an art exhibit in the context of ongoing (and growing) efforts to silence efforts to bring to light artistic expression by Palestinians.Below the article, I'm enclosing an open letter to the Oakland Children's museum, which you can sign if you feel so inclined. NOTE: the address to send signatures to is included.)

Racheli Gai.

Cecilie Surasky: Oakland Children's Museum Cancels Palestinian Children's Art Exhibit Under Pressure from Local Jewish GroupsPosted on September 10 2011Berkeley, CA's Middle East Children's Alliance broke the news yesterday that the exhibit of children's artwork from Gaza that they had worked on for months with Oakland's Children's Museum of Art was suddenly canceled by the board before the planned September 24 opening reception. The show featured drawings by children about Israel's infamous Operation Cast Lead, the military assault of December 2008-January 2009 that led to the deaths of some 1,400 Palestinians, over 300 of them children.

(Check regularly at mecaforpeace.org for updates and planned actions- they won't be taking this lying down.)

MECA said in a statement:

The Museum of Children's Art in Oakland (MOCHA) has decided to cancel an exhibit of art by Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip. The Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), which was partnering with MOCHA to present the exhibit, was informed of the decision by the Museum's board president on Thursday, September 8, 2011. For several months, MECA and the museum had been working together on the exhibit, which is titled "A Child's View From Gaza."

MECA has learned that there was a concerted effort by pro-Israel organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area to pressure the museum to reverse its decision to display Palestinian children's art.

Barbara Lubin, the Executive Director of MECA, expressed her dismay that the museum decided to censor this exhibit in contradiction of its mission "to ensure that the arts are a fundamental part of the lives of all children."

"We understand all too well the enormous pressure that the museum came under. But who wins? The museum doesn't win. MECA doesn't win. The people of the Bay Area don't win. Our basic constitutional freedom of speech loses. The children in Gaza lose," she said.

"The only winners here are those who spend millions of dollars censoring any criticism of Israel and silencing the voices of children who live every day under military siege and occupation."

Recognizing that the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council has an established track record of targeting Palestinian cultural expression, I wrote directly to JCRC Executive Director Doug Kahn to find out if they were involved in the board's sudden decision to cancel the show. Indeed it seems they were, though perhaps not alone. This was his response in full:

East Bay JCRC, working closely with the Jewish Federation of the East Bay, shared with the leadership of MOCHA our concerns about the inappropriateness of this exhibit given the fact that MOCHA – an important and valued community institution – serves very young children.

(MOCHA has only stated that they received complaints "from Jewish groups as well as others in the community.")

However, it doesn't seem likely that this is about concerns for children's sensitivities to war imagery. As the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out in its coverage of the incident today, MOCHA has a significant track record of showing the artwork of children living under war, including WWII, without incident. These images apparently aren't substantively different.

This is, however, about giving voice to Palestinians-in this case children- who endured a simply extraordinary attack on an illegally captive population of 1.5 million people otherwise known as Operation Cast Lead.

The Israel government and its proxies pulled out all of the stops to undermine criticism of the Operation which drew nearly universal condemnation and triggered massive protest marches around the world. An unprecedented smear campaign was launched against a respected Jewish South African jurist named Richard Goldstone who led a UN task force examining Israeli and Hamas war crimes.

The canceling of the art show should be seen in the context of the Goldstone smear campaign, as well as previous successful efforts by a handful of Bay Area Jewish communal organizations to determine what Palestinians can and cannot say. (In contrast, exhibit organizer, the Middle East Children's Alliance, enjoys significant Jewish support, and the Bay Area chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace is one of many exhibit co-sponsors.)

In 2007, the JCRC pressured San Francisco State University to change the content of a mural dedicated to the late great Palestinian intellectual Edward Said. It's worth looking at the mural and then reading the JCRC's critique to understand the depth of their fear of imagery that is so essential to Palestinian memory of fleeing or being expelled from their homes to make way for the then new state. It is odd, to put it mildly, to read Jewish communal professionals so closely aligned with the Israeli Consulate offering in depth art critiques of Palestinian symbolism.

The JCRC was also involved in a deeply messy battle, along with the Anti-Defamation League, over the content of a San Francisco mural painted by young members of the nonprofit H.O.M.E.Y. which works with at-risk kids in San Francisco's mission district. Not surprisingly, the groups' insistence that they represented the vast majority of Jews in the Bay Area-an area known for its commitment to independent thought and open artistic expression– triggered significant Jewish opposition. And of course the JCRC is behind the highly controversial restrictive funding guidelines that essentially bar (or should I say threaten to bar) critics of Israel , including BDS proponents, from speaking prominently on panels of institutions funded in some way by San Francisco's Jewish Federation.

But something tells me that this cancellation of Gazan children's art, some of which you see here, may well cross a line for a lot of fence-sitters. While I reject the argument of parity that only applies to Palestinian stories, it certainly would have been wiser to lobby MOCHA to hold an exhibit-like the Israeli government and others have - of artwork by the children of the Israeli city of Sderot rather than cancel the Gazan exhibit. I myself would have attended both, and brought my young son. But instead, we have what amounts to yet more erasure. The Israeli government has in essence locked the over 60% of Gazans who are children behind a wall and thrown away the key and forgotten entirely about them. Now the rest of us are supposed to forget about them too.

In the meantime, this must feel like dejavu all over again for MECA. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs reported about this incident in late 2005:

MECA had teamed up with the Berkeley Art Center and Alliance Graphics to present an exhibit last November and December called "Justice Matters: Artists Consider Palestine." In their works 14 Palestinian and American artists addressed Israel's occupation and colonization of Palestine.

The artists, MECA and the Berkeley Art Center were attacked by the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other people who claimed to represent the mainstream Jewish community. According to Jos Sances, curator of "Justice Matters," "there was even an effort to close the show down and have the city withdraw its annual support for the Berkeley Art Center."

Fourteen rabbis (one for each artist?) visited Berkeley's mayor to condemn the exhibit. The artists were charged with glorifying violence and terrorism, perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes and even lying about their own history.

On the other hand, there was support from the community and e-mails to the Berkeley Art Center included comments like: "A powerful, scathing experience. Thank you for it" and "It was very thought provoking to see the other side." Even an Israeli offered "my admiration for your courage in showing this important protest art."

MECA's Barbara Lubin says the mayor of Berkeley stood up to pressure and the show went on. The level of denial about Israeli human rights violations has dropped so dramatically in many Jewish communities in recent years—synagogues everywhere across the country are split — that I wonder if 6 years later most of those rabbis would have the same response to challenging art. I suppose we're about to find out.

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Dear Friend,You are invited to be a early signer to the letter below, so your name will be listed when the invitation to prospective signers is broadcast more widely. (Information about the genesis of the letter is pasted at the end of this message.) To add your name and city to the list of signers, please reply to me at martha@martinreese.com. Your organizational affiliation is optional. You may forward this message to your friends and associates who might like to sign. Thank you! Martha Reese

We are writing to request an explanation of MOCHA's decision to cancel the forthcoming exhibition, "A Child's View of Gaza."

We commend you for having seen--at least initially--the importance, relevance, and immediacy of such an exhibition. The show's concept is brilliant: art as a window into the minds of children and, simultaneously, a geopolitical issue. The exhibition, which would have displayed children's varied artistic responses to life experience--some of it traumatic--was sure to inspire the viewer that museum art is a vibrant, living form of expression. Art like this touches our lives and underscores our common humanity within the global family of man.

Why, then, the cancellation?

We would hope that MOCHA's decision is not designed to avoid either controversy or controversial art. Surely, there are well-funded institutions whose purpose is to promote a positive view of Israel. Those same parties, unfortunately, see the marginalizing and demonization of Palestinians as an essential corollary to their advocacy for Israel. They work to silence voices that raise essential, appropriate questions about the human impact of Israeli policy. The individuals who fund and direct these institutions possess, in many cases, a worldview based on limited contact with actual Palestinian individuals or the lives they lead: subjects of military occupation, minority members of a nation in which they are relegated to perennial outsider status, exiles who have been dispossessed so that another people might find a place.

Evidently, some of these narrow-minded individuals with influence and access to decision-makers find it threatening that a direct, uncensored Palestinian perspective might be given a temporary space in American cultural life. Is MOCHA's decision to cancel the exhibit a capitulation to the demands of such persons--individuals whose ignorance, prejudice, and empathy deficit have taken the form of a narrow, intolerant political agenda? Are we to be denied access to the art of all children living with political violence--or are only Palestinian children to be denied a place?

We Americans do not suffer from an overexposure to Palestinian perspectives; on the contrary, our limited exposure is a critical factor in perpetuating dangerous and damaging misapprehensions. Those working most assiduously to eliminate expressions of the rich and complex Palestinian experience are the very people who would benefit most from encountering it in an honest, uncensored form. The best remedy for ignorance, prejudice, and lack of empathy is exposure to life through the eyes of another. That was to be the profoundly hopeful, transformative possibility of "A Child's View of Gaza."

We request an explanation of MOCHA's cancellation of the exhibition, and action that, to us, appears to reflect a serious error in judgment.

Sincerely,Michael Levin, Berwyn, IL - Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and PalestineRebekah Levin, Oak Park, IL - Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and PalestineMartha Reese, River Forest, IL - Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and PalestineCaren Levy Van Slyke, Oak Park, IL - Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine

Friday, September 9, 2011

A fine piece of work by the Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah, exposing Israeli collusion in efforts to harass and silence pro-BDS activists in Olympia, Washington.This is important, because if an effort to sue Olympia's food coop works, it will no doubt open the way to similar efforts elsewhere. "Success" could meanforcing the coop to spend a lot of money countering a law suit, even if the law suit itself fails - since the so called "pro Israel" forces have a lot more moneythan the groups they are likely to go after.

Israel is busily attempting to disrupt the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in support of Palestinian liberation and self-determination. (Anne Paq / The Electronic Intifada )A group of pro-Israel activists, backed by StandWithUs, a national US pro-IsraelUS organization, is planning to take legal action to force the Olympia Food Co-op to rescind its historic decision to boycott Israeli products.

The Electronic Intifada has obtained a copy of a 31 May 2011 letter sent to the Board of Directors of the Olympia Food Co-op in Olympia, Washington, threatening "expensive" legal action if the pro-Israel activists' "demands" to end the boycott of Israeli products are not met.

Other documents, supported by interviews, confirm that the Israeli government has taken part in discussions about, and been given advance knowledge of, the planned lawsuit and another planned action against Evergreen State College in Olympia in response to Palestine solidarity activism by students.

Evergreen State is noted for being the school attended by Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli occupation soldier operating a bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in March 2003.

These developments indicate new, even more aggressive tactics by pro-Israel organizations to suppress, deter and malign any form of Palestine-related dissent, protest or solidarity action.

An historic vote

On 15 July 2010, the Olympia Food Co-Op (OFC) became the first grocery store in the United States to ban Israeli-made items from its shelves.

The highly symbolic action, which gained global attention, came in response to the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) measures against Israel until Israel respects Palestinian human rights and international law.

From the first moment the boycott resolution was passed, Olympia community members who supported and organized for it were accused of anti-Semitism by the Northwest chapter of StandWithUs.

Now, StandWithUs is taking its assault against the OFC to a new level with its backing for legal action.

Also in June 2010, students at Evergreen State College voted overwhelmingly to back an initiative calling on college administrators to divest the school's assets from any companies that profit from Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands, and specifically Caterpillar Corporation, which makes bulldozers Israel uses to demolish Palestinian homes.

It was a Caterpillar bulldozer that Israeli forces used to kill Rachel Corrie as she attempted to prevent such a demolition. According to a StandWithUs flyer (PDF), Rachel Corrie "died in Gaza after interfering with Israeli counter-terrorism operations."

Documents show that in addition to targeting the Olympia Food Co-op, StandWithUs is helping to plan a civil rights complaint against Evergreen State College.

Threat of legal action against Olympia Food Co-op

The 31 May letter (PDF) sent individually to members of the Olympia Food Co-op Board of Directors is signed by five individuals who identify themselves as "members of the Olympia Food Co-op ('OFC') who oppose OFC's boycott of Israeli made products ('Israel Boycott') and divestment from Israeli companies ('Divestment')."

The five are Kent L. Davis, Linda Davis, Susan Mayer, Susan G. Trinin and Jeffrey I. Trinin. All except for Mayer also appeared in a StandWithUs Northwest video published on YouTube in June entitled "Why BDS Scars Don't Heal: A StandWithUs Production."

The video alleges that the BDS effort in Olympia has been motivated by and generated anti-Semitism, and was run by a secretive and conspiratorial "dark organization" from outside the community.

It also claims that the BDS effort in Olympia and a similar initiative in the town of Port Townsend, north of Seattle, last year had generated "a climate of fear and terror for Jews."

The activists' letter makes sweeping allegations that the OFC board engaged in "numerous procedural violations" in passing the boycott of Israeli goods, but it does not provide any examples of such violations.

The letter writers claim to have made many sincere efforts to rectify the unspecified "violations" but asserted that their complaints had "fallen on deaf ears as the Board steadfastly refuses to revisit its position on the Israel Boycott and Divestment policies."

"At this point," the letter states, "we are left no choice but to demand in no uncertain terms that OFC act in accordance with its rules and bylaws and rescind the Israel Boycott and Divestment policies."

The letter sets a thirty-day deadline for a response and adds, "Regrettably should the board reject our demand, we are prepared to pursue relief through the court system."

The pro-Israel activists' letter concludes, "If you do what we demand, this situation may be resolved amicably and efficiently. If not, we will bring legal action against you, and this process will become considerably more complicated, burdensome, and expensive than it has been already."

Lawsuit "a matter of time"

Reached by telephone, Avi Lipman, a Seattle-based attorney that The Electronic Intifada learned represents the letter writers, confirmed that two letters had been sent to the OFC board — the 31 May letter obtained by The Electronic Intifada and a follow-up.

However, Lipman said that a lawsuit had still not been filed, and "there is still an opportunity for the board to take the remedial action my clients have asked for."

Lipman would not specify any procedural violations made by the OFC board. "I don't want to get into it in any detail," he said, indicating that the 31 May letter described "in general terms what our concerns are."

But Lipman did not seem optimistic that the board would rescind the boycott decision as demanded. After the initial thirty-day deadline, Lipman said his clients had given the board an additional fifteen-day period to act.

"That time has also expired," Lipman said. "The board has indicated that it plans to stand by the actions it has taken, so it seems clear to me that remedial action will not be taken."

"It's just a matter of time before we go to court and seek relief from the court," Lipman added.

Lipman was keen to emphasize that his clients' complaints were not based on the substance of the BDS decision, but merely the alleged, unspecified procedural violations. "The issue is how the process unfolded and the procedures that were followed and not followed by the board," Lipman said.

He stressed that if the boycott of Israeli goods was revoked, and then reinstated according to the proper procedures, his clients would abide by it.

"An allegation that doesn't have an allegation"

"We don't have any statement on the non-existent lawsuit," Jayne Kaszynski, Staff Representative to the Olympia Food Co-op Board, told The Electronic Intifada. "It's pretty much impossible to respond to an allegation that doesn't have an allegation."

Kaszynski said that the BDS decision and the procedures used to reach it had generated widespread public debate among Co-op members, especially on theOFC's blog. She added that any member who was unhappy with a decision of the board had "democratic alternatives" to legal action.

"If you've read the bylaws you know that we have a simple member petition process. Any member can create a petition and if they get 300 members to sign it, they can get pretty much any issue put on a ballot," Kaszynski said.

The OFC has 22,000 active members, according to Kaszynski, "so the 300 signature requirement is not very high. So far no one has exercised this democratic right in relation to the boycott."

The petition procedure is described in the Olympia Food Co-op Bylaws.

Lipman, however, said his clients did not think they should use this procedure because they see the original boycott decision as illegitimate, and therefore the burden should be on the board, not on his clients, to take remedial action.

Smearing BDS as "anti-Semitism"

At one point, the StandWithUs YouTube video briefly displays an image of a Nazi Swastika superimposed on a Star of David, with a caption above it stating "Actual image from handout."

The video provides no information on where this handout was supposedly distributed or any evidence that it has anything whatsoever to do with the Olympia Food Co-op.

Yet the smear is clearly meant to tar any and all BDS supporters — presumably including those who self-identify as Jewish — as anti-Semites.

"I really don't think it's comfortable for Jews to live in the city of Olympia and be outwardly expressing Jews," Kent Davis, one of the letter writers, claims in the video. "You know, you can be a closet Jew and that's fine. I just don't feel comfortable discussing my religion or my beliefs in a mixed group environment anymore."

As with the swastika "handout," no evidence is ever presented of any specific incidents that back up this grave charge likening placid Olympia to 1930s Berlin, or to link the alleged climate of fear to the Olympia Food Co-op's boycott of Israeli goods.

A "dark" outside conspiracy

In the StandWithUs video, the letter writers and other speakers allege that theBDS action at the Olympia Food Co-op was planned by a shadowy organization that came in from outside the community, and then disappeared leaving behind acrimony and conflict from which there has been no "healing."

None of these allegations come with any specifics or facts and the overall tone is conspiratorial.

"It's amazing that I've been pushed aside as a Jew in this town because of theBDS," says Tibor Breuer, identified as an OFC member in the video. "It's a very, very dark organization that has no interest in anything that has to do with the two-state solution."

BDS is, in fact, not an "organization," but the term given to a set of principles and tactics which have been taken up by independent individuals and solidarity groups all over the world in response to the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions measures on Israel until Israel ends its human rights violations and respects Palestinian rights and international law.

"When BDS comes into these communities, they just divide people in all sorts of ways and then they leave and the community is stuck with having to somehow heal and we can't heal yet," Linda Davis, another of the five letter writers, alleges in the video.

"BDS was over there in Europe celebrating their victory, and we're stuck with this shit," Breuer adds.

In fact, at the time the OFC boycott was passed, and since, those who initiated it spoke frequently to the media, and all have been local Olympia community and Co-op members.

Ironically, Robert S. Jacobs, the director of StandWithUs Northwest, acknowledges as much.

Refuting suggestions that the pro-Israel counterattack against BDS is centralized, Jacobs told The Electronic Intifada, "Similar to the BDS movement, we're made up of activists in the community who passionately feel they want to express a certain perspective and hope that opinion leaders will adopt that perspective."

Jacobs admitted in the interview that there was no such thing as "BDS central." Yet the video that bears the StandWithUs name and features the letter writers paints an altogether different picture.

Meanwhile, the vilification of Palestine solidarity activists as anti-Semites is not surprising given the views of some of the StandWithUs leadership.

One board member and founder in Los Angeles, Mordechai "Moti" Gur, describes the purpose of StandWithUs in the following terms on the website for another organization he founded: "We combat the soft jihad and local intifadas by Muslim organizations by exposing everyone to the light of truth" (The Moses Project).

Other StandWithUs documents and websites routinely malign Palestine solidarity activists — including the nine civilians killed by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara as "jihadists."

But while the pro-Israel activists in the StandWithUs video allege — without offering a shred of evidence — that OFC was the victim of a "dark" external conspiracy by anti-Semitic outsiders bent on dividing their community, they themselves are receiving significant external backing.

How StandWithUs describes its role

StandWithUs is a national pro-Israel advocacy organization which has taken a lead in fighting "delegitimization" and BDS.

Pro-Israel groups and the Israeli government have since last year claimed that virtually all Palestinian solidarity work amounts to an effort to delegitmize Israel. In recent policy speeches, US officials have vowed to help Israel combat "delegitmization" — though precisely what this means in practice and how it may affect civil liberties and free speech is unclear.

The Northwest chapter of StandWithUs has been particularly active in combatingBDS efforts not only in Olympia but at the food co-op in Port Townsend, north of Seattle, where there was an unsuccessful bid to emulate the OFC boycott. (Disclosure: I was invited to Port Townsend in August 2010 to speak at a community event in support of BDS).

But how deeply involved is StandWithUs, and how does the organization liaise with the Israeli government in mounting these local battles?

Jacobs characterizes StandWithUs Northwest as little more than a small local chapter, "a two-person office," providing basic support and advice to individuals such as those threatening to sue the Olympia Food Co-op.

Jacobs told The Electronic Intifada his group's contact with the five letter writers was largely limited to providing printed materials, helping bring in speakers and offering advice. He said he had not seen either of the letters sent to theOFC board.

Although Jacobs did acknowledge working with and meeting repeatedly with the letter writers, he characterized the relationship to any potential lawsuit as arms length:

"Since we're not actually a party to anything down there, frankly we're not in any of the loop regarding the legal matters. Just from an attorney-client privilege standpoint anything we would do with anybody would be violating some kind of potential privilege. So, we know that they're doing some stuff. I know they've been working with an attorney. I know which firm it is but beyond that we have not in any way participated in the legal discussion."

Jacobs acknowledged attending one meeting related to the potential lawsuit.

"We were at one meeting, I don't know how many months ago, before anything actually happened," Jacobs explained.

"We had been asked by some of the folks down there if we knew any attorneys up here [in Seattle], so we mentioned a number of names. But I was at a meeting where they had an initial — they had not retained any attorney or developed any permanent relationship with an attorney — when they had someone there talk off-the-cuff about what an attorney could do for them."

Jacobs was also adamant that his office had not done any fundraising toward a potential lawsuit. "I don't foresee us putting any money into a lawsuit," he said, adding, "I don't know of anybody who's giving them money. I'll be that blunt about it."

Jacobs estimated that the amount of money his office had spent on work related to the OFC boycott — presumably not including staff time — amounted to just hundreds of dollars principally for printing flyers and brochures.

The role of the Israeli consulate

Asked what role the Israeli government plays in StandWithUs Northwest's work, Jacobs stated that he personally knew Akiva Tor, the Israeli Consul General for the Pacific Northwest, based in San Francisco, and that Tor would be speaking at an upcoming StandWithUs fundraising event. Jacobs acknowledged that StandWithUs had helped to bring Tor's deputy to speak in Port Townsend.

Jacobs said that the Israeli consulate did not play any "active role" in opposing theOFC boycott, but, he added, "from the information standpoint they want to know what's going on."

"We update him [Tor] on what's happening in the community here," Jacobs said.

"If what you're talking about is if there is some sort of central coordination out of Israel for the activity we are doing here, absolutely not," he added.

Tor had also offered to speak in Olympia, but it had not happened yet, according to Jacobs. "I know he met in a coffee shop with the Corries [Cindy and Craig, the parents of Rachel Corrie]. I heard that from all sorts of people in Olympia," Jacobs stated.

Yet, this characterization is at best incomplete.

A deeper role for Israeli officials?

Although Jacobs has confirmed reporting to Israeli officials what goes on in the local community, the relationship may be even closer than he acknowledged.

A "Weekly Status Report" of StandWithUs Northwest, for the week of 5-11 March 2011 states that the following meetings took place:

"Rob [Jacobs] and Carolyn in Olympia with Olympia activists, Akiva Tor and Avi Lipman on Thursday - Presentation of legal case, discussion of Evergreen strategy and Olympia community speaker opportunities."

Carolyn Hathaway is the co-chair of StandWithUs Northwest.

In his conversation with The Electronic Intifada, Jacobs did not disclose that Israeli Consul General Tor had not only already traveled to Olympia at the behest of StandWithUs, but had participated in a meeting with the activists threatening to sue the OFC and their lawyer.

The "status update" was posted on a website that archives emails sent to members of a private list of StandWithUs affiliates, but the website itself is unprotected.

It appears that this and other documents may have been published inadvertently, given how revealing they are of StandWithUs Northwest's activities and strategy and the contradictions with Jacobs' own characterizations.

Akiva Tor did not respond to a request to speak to The Electronic Intifada left with a staff person at his office.

The attorney, Avi Lipman, would not disclose what was discussed at the March meeting, again citing attorney-client privilege. Lipman said, however, "The Israeli consulate has nothing to do with this action. StandWithUs is not our client. We represent the individual co-op members who have asked the board to take remedial action."

While all that may technically be true, none of it is inconsistent with a close advisory and an eventual fundraising role for StandWithUs and even the Israeli consulate.

Nor does it explain the presence of an official from a foreign government at a meeting in which legal action against OFC and possibly Evergreen State College was discussed.

Lipman would also not discuss how his clients might be able to afford an "expensive" — as the 31 May letter put it — legal action.

Another worrying possibility is that through StandWithUs, and possibly other organizations, Israeli diplomatic missions may collect intelligence about local activists or people who express views sympathetic to Palestinian human rights in order to exclude such people from visiting the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip on political grounds.

In July, for example, Israel detained and deported dozens of individuals who planned to visit the occupied West Bank at the invitation of Palestinians.

StandWithUs remains fully engaged in Olympia lawsuit

Jacobs' characterization of his organization's role with the planned lawsuit as almost incidental is flatly contradicted by another document made public via the StandWithUs email archive.

The agenda for an upcoming 27 September 2011 StandWithUs Northwest Executive Committee meeting includes the following items:

Project StatusThe civil rights complaint against Evergreen State CollegeThe law suit against the Olympia Food Co-opWorking to shut down the "educational" programs that Ed Mast has circulated to all Washington State social studies teachers and librariansSpeakers BureauThus the OFC lawsuit and the Evergreen State College civil rights complaint are both "projects" of the StandWithUs Northwest Executive Committee, and firmly on its agenda.

Ed Mast, it is worth noting, is a Seattle-area activist and playwright who has provided educational resources on Palestine.

In addition to everything else, it would appear that rather than merely providing an alternative, pro-Israeli viewpoint, StandWithUs is working to censor and exclude other viewpoints from schools and libraries and exclusively impose its own.

And, far from being merely restricted to its local area, StandWithUs Northwest is apparently assuming a national role:

StandWithUs Northwest helping other regionsHelping Avi Posnick in NY oppose the BDS boycott proposal at the Park Slope Food Co-op in BrooklynHelping Gail Rubin in Davis oppose the BDS boycott proposal at the Sacramento Food Co-op in SacramentoIt is clear from its agenda that not only is StandWithUs Northwest playing a continuing role in Olympia, but expanding its anti-BDS activities across the country.

Focus on procedure, not substance

During his interview with The Electronic Intifada, Jacobs characterized the grievances the letter writers had with the co-op in a manner remarkably similar to the 31 May letter which he said he had not seen. He acknowledged that it was StandWithUs' advice that the case should focus on procedure, rather than substance.

"Courtrooms aren't the place to discuss foreign policy and they wouldn't make a decision based on that," Jacobs explained. "The same is true with the board members that were on the board [of OFC] at the time. Most of them were sympathetic to the BDS movement and trying to make an argument counter to theirs would be a huge educational effort and probably not very successful."

This, Jacobs said, was the rationale for focusing on procedure, rather than substantive arguments.

StandWithUs fundraising

Jacobs presents StandWithUs Northwest as almost a shoe-string operation. "We're thought of as this huge, incredibly wealthy organization," he told The Electronic Intifada. "As far as Jewish community organizations go, even on a national basis, we don't have anything near the kind of resources of some other organizations such as ADL or AJC. Here frankly, we barely cover our own costs just in operations."

But public financial filings of StandWithUs, which raises funds under the legal name "Israel Emergency Alliance," (IEA) tell a quite different story.

The IEA's mandatory Form 990 financial filings to the Internal Revenue Service (available from the website Guidestar) show an organization with $4.2 million in annual revenue and impressive fundraising capacity.

In 2008, Jacobs himself received an annual salary of $96,923 for an average forty-hour week, more on a pro-rated basis than StandWithUs founder and national executive director Roz Rothstein who received $100,000 for an average sixty-hour week, according to the filings. In 2009, Rothstein's salary was raised to $150,000.

StandWithUs also has an international presence, with an Israeli office and a European base in Brussels, which together accounted for a million dollars in expenses in 2009.

The largest area of expenditure, however, is for campus advocacy at US colleges and universities, which accounted for $2.6 million in 2009.

Targeting Evergreen State College for student activism

The planned civil rights complaint against Evergreen State College may be an attempt to use alleged incidents of campus anti-Semitism as the basis for a legal action to discredit the divestment campaign at the school.

On 8 November 2010, a story appeared on the news website MyNorthwest.com under the byline of Alex Silverman with the headline "Pro-Israel students harassed, leave Evergreen State."

It alleges that Evergreen State, once an oasis of tolerance, had become a place where some students have faced "torment and harassment" and have even left "simply for expressing their opinions about a controversial issue."

The story claims five unnamed students "transferred out" of Evergreen State because of "harassment," but the only source is a student named Joshua Levine. "There are days I feel uncomfortable walking across campus alone because I wear a yarmulke [Jewish skull cap] on my head," Levine alleges.

Levine, president of the campus chapter of Hillel — another national pro-Israel organization — is also a StandWithUs Northwest Emerson Fellow.

But what were the examples of "harassment" that supposedly led to this situation? Just like the StandWithUs video, the only ones Levine provides conflate Palestine solidarity with "anti-Semitism":

The MyNorthwest.com story also notes: "This summer, the student body at Evergreen State voted overwhelmingly to divest from companies with economic interests in Israel, further fueling the anti-Israel fervor on campus."

That, it would seem, is what is making Levine so uncomfortable.

Laying the ground for a civil rights complaint

Recently, the US Department of Education began investigating precisely such a civil rights complaint stemming from charges of anti-Semitism because of Palestine solidarity activism at the University of California-Santa Cruz.

That federal investigation is the first of its kind, though it may well be the model for targeting Evergreen State College.

Has StandWithUs, through Levine, been carefully laying the ground for a similar effort to use US civil rights protection legislation to suppress criticism of a foreign government that engages in massive human rights abuses and discrimination of precisely the kind civil rights legislation is meant to prevent?

Importing Israeli repression to the US?

What is particularly troubling about the threatened legal action against OFC and Evergreen State backed by StandWithUs and its close collaboration with the Israeli government, is that it appears to import Israeli tactics of political repression into the United States.

Earlier this year, Israel passed a law that imposes heavy fines on anyone who participates in or advocates a boycott of Israeli businesses, universities and social and cultural institutions or illegal West Bank settlements. The law was strongly condemned by human rights organizations as a violation of basic freedoms.

The threatened legal action against the Olympia Food Co-op may be a "do it yourself" version of the law on US soil. Simply taking someone to court imposes a punishment on them through high legal fees before any judgment is ever rendered. That may be the whole point.

It should serve as a red flag that however small and tight-knit a community, powerful pro-Israel groups, in coordination with Israeli officials, are prepared to go to any length to smear and harass people.

They'll do whatever it takes to keep people quiet about Israel's human rights abuses, war crimes and the international complicity that the BDS movement seeks to expose, challenge and bring to an end.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The article below describes a survey done in Israel, in 5 cities, by Eli Ungar-Sargon and his wife Sharon. This was part of their work on a documentary on the Israel/Palestine conflict.The survey provides substantiation for the following: 1- Anti-Arab sentiment is a mainstream phenomenon in Israel. 2- More racism among the very young. 3- Support for a 2 state solution (when this involves handing back territory) is really low. 4- In reality, attitudes are likely worse than the conclusions of this survey.While the survey is not "scientific", and some of the criteria set by those who conducted it are questionable, IMO, I think it's interesting and of value.

In addition to the article, there is a video clip that gives a glimpse into the responses given.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Josh Ruebner who works with "The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation" has done some digging into the matter of US congress representatives trips to Israel. 81 reps. - nearly 20% of the house - are participating in all expenses paid junkets organized by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) "a so-called charitable affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential of the myriad pro-Israel lobbying outfits."Looking into the connections between AIEF and AIPAC, Ruebner exposed the fact that AIEF seems to be a front group for AIPAC, not an independent entity, and that as such - has no legal right to organize such trips.

Based on these revelations, CODEPINK has filed a formal complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee, calling for an investigation of these junkets.

Nearly 20 percent of the constituents of Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) live under the poverty line, and nearly 15 percent are unemployed. Jackson's congressional district, covering parts of the south side of Chicago and its southern suburbs, has been hit harder than many others by the crises plaguing the economy. Many of his constituents are looking at even more cutbacks in social services, higher prices for food and fuel, and ever scarcer jobs.

During this August congressional recess, Rep. Jackson, Jr. should be at home, meeting with constituents and proposing to them how he will help them cope with their difficult circumstances. Instead, the politician is proudly gallivanting around Israel, in one of three separate congressional delegations heading there this month on all-expense-paid junkets organized by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), a so-called charitable affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential of the myriad pro-Israel lobbying outfits.

In total, 81 representatives, nearly one-fifth of the entire House, will participate in these jaunts, which, according to The Washington Post, include "a round-trip flight in business class for lawmakers and their spouses (that alone is worth about $8,000), fine hotels and meals, side trips, and transportation and guides."

Of course, these congressional delegations are not all fun and games. Members of Congress will be expected to sing for their lavish dinners by honoring President Bush's 2007 pledge to provide the Israeli military with $30 billion of tax-payer-funded weapons between 2009 and 2018. So far, proposed increases in military aid to Israel have been spared from the budgetary chopping block by President Obama and a compliant Congress that treats Israeli militarism as more sacrosanct than medical care for seniors. This despite the fact that Israel misuses the funds, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act, to commit human rights abuses against Palestinians living under its illegal 44-year military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.

According to aidtoisrael.org, constituents in Illinois' 2nd congressional district will be asked to cough up an astonishing $53 million in federal taxes as their pound of flesh for the Israeli military during this 10-year period. With this same amount of money, each year the federal government instead could give 650 low-income families housing vouchers, or retrain nearly 900 unemployed workers for green jobs, or fund early reading programs for nearly 1,600 at-risk children, or provide primary health care to more than 43,000 uninsured people in Rep. Jackson's congressional district.

Yali Amit, an Israeli-American constituent of Rep. Jackson, Jr. called his office to oppose his participation in the trip to Israel. He was told that Rep. Jackson, Jr. wants to learn what is happening there because of his position on the appropriations subcommittee that approves military aid to Israel. Amit retorted that "you can't learn what goes on there on a paid trip of a propaganda arm of the Israeli government." And you certainly can't learn about the devastating impact that these U.S. weapons have on unarmed Palestinian civilians, nearly 3,000 of whom were killed by the Israeli military over the last decade.

The House Committee on Ethics should open an investigation to determine if it is even legal for Members of Congress to be participating in junkets organized by AIEF. The guidelines of the committee are as bright and clear as the midday sun on a Tel Aviv beach in August. "The travel provisions of the gift rule severely limit the ability of Members and staff to accept travel from an entity that employs or retains a registered lobbyist or a registered agent of a foreign principal." (Emphasis in original.)

Legistorm, which tracks congressional travel, explains that "even though AIPAC's primary purpose is lobbying, its nonprofit arm [AIEF] appears to provide a loophole for sponsored travel." However, this eureka loophole that AIPAC uses does not withstand scrutiny. According to the latest publicly available tax return of AIEF, the organization has no paid employees -- an astounding feat in itself for an organization that raked in more than $26 million in 2009 and a mind-blowing accomplishment for an organization running three huge congressional delegations in one month.

An examination of AIPAC's latest publicly available tax return reveals the sleight of hand. AIPAC reports that in 2009, it very generously contributed more than $3.2 million of employee salaries to cover the staff costs of AIEF. In other words, a 501(c)(4) organization with registered lobbyists is paying for the staff of a 501(c)(3) organization to run congressional delegations that cannot be funded by an organization that employs registered lobbyists.

Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen who helped draft the new post-Abramoff federal lobbying and ethics reform legislation signed into law in 2007, agrees that something is rotten in state of AIPAC. According to Holman, "The House ethics rules do not provide an exemption for 501(c)(3)s that are controlled and directed by a lobbying entity to pay for travel junkets for members of Congress. When the ethics rules were written in 2007 as part of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA), an exemption for 501(c)(3)s was written into the Senate rules – which I called the 'AIPAC' loophole – but the House under Speaker Pelosi stuck to strict travel rules for its members and declined to poke a comparable loophole into its ethics rules.

"Even if there were such a loophole in House rules," Holman continues, "which there isn't, it appears that the 501(c)(3) wing of AIPAC is little more than a front group designed to extend its lobbying activities beyond Capitol Hill. From 2000 to 2006, lobbyist Richard Kessler similarly attempted to evade the ethics rule prohibiting lobbyist- sponsored travel junkets by setting up a 501(c)(3) that he directly controlled to pay for the trips. HLOGA was passed in 2007 to end these types of evasions."

Constituents should be irate that members of Congress accept fancy trips from AIPAC-affiliates and contributions from AIPAC-inspired political action committee (PACs) that result in the United States prioritizing weapons to Israel above our basic economic rights. And the Committee on Ethics must investigate AIPAC's skirting of travel regulations and shut down these trips that it has until now allowed.

The peace group CODEPINK has filed a formal complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee, calling for an investigation of the junkets to Israel paid for by the powerful Israel lobby AIPAC but channeled through their educational front group, The American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). This summer recess, a staggering 81 Congresspeople—one out of five members—are participating in these trips.

According to the House Ethics Rules, Congress is prohibited from participating in any multiple-day trip that is planned, organized, requested, or arranged by a lobbyist. AIPAC skirts the law by funneling the trips through AIEF.

According to the latest publicly available tax returns, in 2009 AIEF did not even have paid staff, relying on AIPAC employees to do its work. AIPAC contributed more than $3.2 million of employee salaries to cover the staff costs of AIEF in 2009. In other words, a 501(c)(4) organization with registered lobbyists is paying for the staff of a 501(c)(3) organization to run congressional delegations that cannot legally be funded by an organization that employs registered lobbyists.

"AIPAC barely tries to hide that fact that AIEF is a front group," says CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin, who filed the complaint. "The groups are housed in the same offices, have overlapping boards of directors, share staff, employ the same Chief Financial Officer and are constantly moving funds from one entity to another. It's time for Congress to put an end to this charade by closing the AIPAC loophole."

Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen who helped draft federal lobbying and ethics reform legislation signed into law in 2007, agrees. "The House ethic rules do not allow a non-profit group like AIEF, which is controlled and directed by the lobby group AIPAC, to pay for travel junkets for members of Congress. This AIPAC loophole is rendering the travel rules meaningless and should be stopped," says Holman.

"With constituents facing severe economic hardships, Representatives should be home in their districts during this August recess to tell voters how they will dig us out the mess they've created," says Josh Ruebner, the national advocacy director at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. "Instead many of them are spending part of their recess in Israel on a lobbyist-funded trip, being pressured into even more tax-payer-funded weapons for the Israeli military, weapons used to commit human rights abuses against Palestinians."

CODEPINK, which organizes citizen diplomacy delegations to Israel and Palestine, including Gaza, believes these AIPAC trips give the participants a skewed view that hides the oppressive nature of the Israeli government. "The trips are designed to push the U.S. Congress into supporting AIPAC policies of unconditional support for the Israel government, such as continuing to give $3 billion of our taxdollars to Israel and vetoing the upcoming Palestinian call for statehood at the UN," said Benjamin. "AIPAC puts the interests of Israel before U.S. interests, which makes these Congressional junkets dangerous and downright un-American."

Friday, August 12, 2011

Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a long time peace activist and an academic, has just got her book "Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education" published by I.B. Tauris. Part of the publisher's description of the book: "She analyzes the presentation of images, maps, layouts and use of language in History, Geography and Civic Studies textbooks, and reveals how the books might be seen to marginalize Palestinians, legitimize Israeli military action and reinforce Jewish-Israeli territorial identity.

This conclusion isn't exactly news. Each one of us who has been through the Israeli educational system has experienced this. But for someone like me, whose indoctrination had taken place in the mid-fifties and the 60's, it's of great interest to see what has happened later on. I haven't read the book yet, but my strong impression is that for the most part things have gotten much worse.

I'd also like to note the irony of this, in light of the constant complaint that it's the Palestinian educational system that's based on entrenched racism, which is the cause for the alleged deep hatred Palestinians harbor towards anything and everything Jewish.

Below you'll find a short interview with Nurit Peled-Elhanan, as well as an article by Omar Barghouthi describing what the book is about.

This insightful research by respected Israeli scholar Nurit Peled-Elhanan will confirm what Palestinian researchers have always known: Israel's prevailing culture of racism, fundamentalism, support for war crimes, and apartheid against Palestinians is mainly a product of an educational system that indoctrinates Jewish-Israeli students with militant colonial values and extreme racism that turn them into "monsters" once in uniform.

"Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years, and her account, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, is to be published in the UK this month. She describes what she found as racism– but, more than that, a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service.

"People don't really know what their children are reading in textbooks," she said. "One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behaviour of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. People ask how can these nice Jewish boys and girls become monsters once they put on a uniform. I think the major reason for that is education. So I wanted to see how school books represent Palestinians."

In "hundreds and hundreds" of books, she claims she did not find one photograph that depicted an Arab as a "normal person". The most important finding in the books she studied – all authorised by the ministry of education – concerned the historical narrative of events in 1948, the year in which Israel fought a war to establish itself as an independent state, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the ensuing conflict.

The killing of Palestinians is depicted as something that was necessary for the survival of the nascent Jewish state, she claims."

Those who see this as an aberration of Zionism seem to lack sufficient understanding of what Zionism really is and the central role it plays as a patently racist ideology in justifying ethnic cleansing and racist domination over Palestinians.

One should not wonder then why, at the height of the Israeli massacre in Gaza 2008-09, a Tel Aviv University poll (reported in the Jerusalem Post, Jan. '09) of Jewish-Israeli opinion showed a shocking 94% support for the assault, despite full knowledge of the enormous suffering this Israeli aggression had inflicted upon the 1.5 million Palestinians incarcerated in the Gaza "prison camp" and of the massive destruction of their civilian infrastructure.

As in every other colonial system, only sustained and effective pressure from within as well as from without can put an end to this downward spiral of criminality, impunity and unspoken racism. More BDS is needed to end Israeli occupation, colonialism and apartheid. Other than the obvious benefits to indigenous Palestinians, suffering more than six decades of this three-tiered system of Israeli oppression, an end to this system of oppression may well transform most Israelis from colonial "monsters" into normal humans.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

There are 16 days left to reach the financial goal set by makers of this truly worthy project. Please consider helping - any amount will help. As someone who uses films a whole lot in my activist work, I can't wait to show this one...Racheli.

Here are some words from Dalit Baum:

***** Last push - let's try and make this happen, please send this email around...

Help us support this exciting new film project about Palestinian nonviolent resistance!The film maker, Connie Field, is an ally and a friend, and I have been using her amazing film "The Bottom Line" in my talks all around (about the campaigns around the world that targeted companies involved in Apartheid South Africa). It is one of the smartest, most precise and useful depictions of the anti-Apartheid movement, and she has had the film translated to Arabic and shown all around in Palestine and the middle east.Help Connie complete her new film, by donating as little as the price of a movie ticket, and earn access to the completed film online and much much more: http://kck.st/pf9XsE. If we get enough people to pledge a small donation,

The new project Follows a theater group on the road in the occupied West Bank, as it performs Clay Carson's play about Martin Luther King Jr. The performers, of the Palestinian National Theater and an African-American gospel choir, meet with realities on the ground and help introduce viewers of different backgrounds to the occupation, and to the Palestinian civil rights movement. The choir works with the Jenin Freedom Theater, and the project commemorates the Palestinian-Israeli actor and activist Juliamo Mer Khamis who was assassinated during the tour.

As a global, glowing movement, we can support our films ourselves. This one is sure to become a powerful tool for us as a movement, and to help introduce us to many new audiences.

Please pledge as little as $1 online: http://kck.st/pf9XsEand help us spread the word - LIKE the website on facebook, SHARE with your friends, and forward this mail to your mailing lists.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

"Real News" piece on the Israeli demonstrations.A comment from Joel Beinin: Impressive. Something is happening, but too soon to tell what. They want me to lecture about Egypt on Thursday at the Rothschild camp-out (the most yuppie). The numbers in this report are somewhat inflated. But the original call for "Tahrir, Jihad" (see recent MERO) seems to be catching on. But note the Israeli flags (absent in Jerusalem on July 15 by prior agreement). And the Director General of the Treasury didn't quit at Bibi's request, but as a protest against the pig-headed approach of the Minister, Yuval Steinitz, who may yet be thrown under the bus.

And then an excellent piece by Joel about the influence of the Arab Awakening on both Israelis and Palestinians.Joel Beinin: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Arab Awakening August 1, 2011http://www.merip.org/mero/mero080111

Writing a few days later:In the meantime, demonstrations in Israel have been growing in size. It's estimated that about 300,000 people demonstrated yesterday (Aug. 6), in various locales across Israel.Here is an additional piece by Abir Kopty, describing the massive demonstrations and encampments from the point of view of a Palestinian. The essence of her message is: "Social justice can't be divided or categorized. If it is not justice to all including all Palestinians, then it is a fake justice, elite justice or "Justice for Jews only" exactly as the Israeli democracy functions "for Jews only". July 14 is a great opportunity for Israelis to refuse to allow their state to continue to drown into an apartheid regime."Whether Israeli Jews will seize on this opportunity or not still remains to be seen.

If you are Palestinian, it will be difficult to find anything to identify with in Tel Aviv's tents' city on Rothschild Boulevard, until you reach Tent 1948. My first tour there was a few days ago, when I decided to join Tent 1948. Tent 1948's main message is that social justice should be for all. It brings together Jewish and Palestinian citizens who believe in shared sovereignty in the state of all its citizens.

For me, as a Palestinian, I don't feel part of the July 14 movement, and I'm not there because I feel part. Almost every corner of this encampment reminds me that this place does not want me. My first tour there was pretty depressing, I found lots of Israeli flags, a man giving a lecture to youth about his memories from '48 war' from a Zionist perspective, another group marching with signs calling for the release of Gilad Shalit, another singing Zionist songs. This is certainly not a place that the 20% of the population would feel they belong to. The second day I found Ronen Shuval, from Im Tirtzu, the extreme right wing organization, giving a talk full of incitement and hatred to the left and human rights organizations. Settlers already set a tent and were dancing with joy.

The existence of Tent 1948 in the encampment constitutes a challenge to people taking part in the July 14 movement. In the first few days, the tent was attacked by group of rightwing activists, who beat activists in the tent and broke down the Palestinian flag of the tent. Some of the leaders of the July 14 movement have said clearly that raising core issues related to Palestinian community in Israel or the occupation will make the struggle "lose momentum". They often said the struggle is social, not political, as if there was a difference. They are afraid of losing supporters if they make Palestinian issues bold.

The truth is that this is the truth.

The truth is, this is exactly what might help Netanyahu, if he presses the button of fear, recreates the 'enemy' and reproduce the 'security threat', he might be able to silence this movement. The problem is not with Netanyahu, he is not the first Israeli leader to rely on this. The main problem is that Israelis are not ready yet to see beyond the walls surrounding them.

Yet, one has to admit, something is happening, Israelis are awakening. There is a process; people are coming together, discussing issues. The General Assembly of the encampment decided on Friday that it will not accept any racist messages among its participants. Even to Tent 1948 many Israelis arrived, read the flyers, listened to what Tent 1948 represent and discussed calmly. Perhaps if I was a Jewish Israeli I will be proud of the July 14 movement. But, I am not a Jew, I am not Zionist, I am Palestinian.

I don't want to beatify the reality, or hide anything for the sake of 'tactics' and I will not accept crumbs. I want to speak about historical justice, I want to speak about occupation, I want to speak about discrimination and racism, I want to put everything on the table, and I want to speak about them in the heart of Tel Aviv.

Social justice can't be divided or categorized. If it is not justice to all including all Palestinians, then it is a fake justice, elite justice or "Justice for Jews only" exactly as the Israeli democracy functions "for Jews only". July 14 is a great opportunity for Israelis to refuse to allow their state to continue to drown into an apartheid regime.

Abir Kopty blogs here. Follow her twitter feed @abirkopty. A media analyst and consultant and political activist, she is a former city council member in Nazareth & former spokeswoman for Mossawa, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

I'm enclosing a few of the better articles describing and providing analysis for the mass murders in Norway, as well as to the reactions to them in the US.The last link below describes some of the reactions in Israel.An outstanding feature of reactions everywhere has been the tendency to blame Muslims, even before any actual information was available. Then, once it was known that the murderer was a white Christian, many still insisted that this, too, was somehow (at least in part) the fault of Muslims. Additional interesting characteristic of much of mainstream commentary is the wish to use the terms 'terrorist'/'terrorism' exclusively to acts performed by Muslims - another symptoms of deeply internalized racism.

Two weeks after the fatal terrorist attacks of July 7, 2005, in London, and one day after another failed attack, a student, Jean Charles de Menezes, was in the London Underground when plainclothes police officers gave chase and shot him seven times in the head.

Initial eyewitness reports said he was wearing a suspiciously large puffa jacket on a hot day and had vaulted the barriers and run when asked to stop. Anthony Larkin, who was on the train, said he saw "this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out." Mark Whitby, who was also at the station, thought he saw a Pakistani terrorist being chased and gunned down by plainclothes policemen. Less than a month later, Whitby said, "I now believe that I could have been looking at the surveillance officer" being thrown out of the way as Menezes was being killed.

The Pakistani turned out to be a Brazilian. Security cameras showed he was wearing a light denim jacket and clearly in no rush as he picked up a free paper and swiped his metrocard.

"The way we see things is affected by what we know and what we believe," wrote John Berger in Ways of Seeing. "The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled."

When some Western commentators see a terrorist attack they are apparently far more comfortable with what they believe than what they know.

So it was on Friday when news emerged of the appalling attacks in Norway that have left an estimated seventy-six dead and a nation traumatized. Rupert Murdoch's Sun in Britain (the bestselling daily newspaper) ran with the headline "Al Qaeda massacre: Norway's 9/11." The Weekly Standard insisted: "We don't know if al Qaeda was directly responsible for today's events, but in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra." Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post then claimed: "This is a sobering reminder for those who think it's too expensive to wage a war against jihadists."

In just a few hours an entire conceptual framework had been erected—though hardly from scratch—to discuss the problem of Muslims in particular and non-white immigration in Europe in general and the existential threat these problems pose to civilization as we know it.

Then came the fact that the terrorist was actually a white, fundamentalist Christian and a neo-Nazi, Anders Breivik, raging against Islam and multiculturalism. Unlike Muslims in the wake of Islamist attacks, Christians weren't called upon to insist upon their moderation. No one argued that white people had to get with the Enlightenment project. But the bombings—and the presumptions about who was responsible—suggest that the true threat to European democracy is not Islam or Muslims but, once again, fascism and racists.

The belief that Muslims must have been involved chimes easily with a distorted, hysterical understanding of the demographic, religious and racial dynamics that have been present in Europe for well over a generation, variants of which are also at work in the United States today.

The general framing goes like this. Europe is being overrun by Muslims and other non-white immigrants, who are outbreeding non-Muslims at a terrifying rate. Unwilling to integrate culturally and unable to compete intellectually, Muslim populations have become hotbeds of terrorist sympathy and activity. Their presence threatens not only security but the liberal consensus regarding women's rights and gay rights that Western Europe has so painstakingly established; and overall, this state of affairs represents a fracturing of society that is losing its common values. This has been allowed to happen in the name of not offending specific ethnic groups, otherwise known as multiculturalism.

One could spend all day ripping these arguments to shreds, but for now let's just deal with the facts.

There have been predictions that the Muslim population of Europe will almost double by 2015 (Oner Taspiner, the Brookings Institution); double by 2020 (Don Melvin, the Associated Press); and be 20 percent of the continent by 2050 (Esther Pan, Council on Foreign Relations). Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum told Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches: "The number I heard is every 32 years the population, the European population of Europe will be reduced by 50 percent. That's how bad their birthrates are. This is in many respects a dying continent from the standpoint of European-Europeans."

This is nonsense. The projections are way off. While Muslims in Europe do have higher birthrates than non-Muslims, their birthrates are falling. A Pew Forum study, published in January 2011, forecast an increase of Muslims in European population from 6 percent in 2010 to 8 percent in 2030.

The Norwegian terrorist Breivik feared a Muslim takeover. But Muslims make up 3 percent of Norway. Black Americans have a greater presence in Alaska.

But even if these predictions were true, so what? There's nothing to say Europe has to remain Christian or majority-white.

Nor do immigrants struggle to integrate. In Britain, Asian Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus all marry outside of their own groups at the same rates as whites. For most ethnic minorities in Britain, roughly half or more of their friends are white. Only 20 percent of those born in Britain have friends only from their own group. According to a Pew Research Center survey, the principal concerns of Muslims in France, Germany and Spain are unemployment and Islamic extremism.

In most of Europe the official politics of multiculturalism that the likes of Breivik and more mainstream politicians rail against—a liberal, state-led policy of encouraging and supporting cultural difference at the expense of national cohesion—is an absolute fiction. Last year German chancellor Angela Merkel claimed the "multikulti" experiment had failed. Earlier this year, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the same thing. The truth is that neither country ever tried such an experiment. "We never had a policy of multiculturalism," explains Mekonnen Mesghena, head of migration and intercultural management at the Heinrich Böll Foundation. "We had a policy of denial: denial of immigration and of diversity. Now it's like we are waking up from a long trance."

The real object of their ire is the existence of "other"—meaning non-white—cultures and races in Europe: the fact of "other" cultures, not the promotion of them. The single greatest obstacle to integration in most of Europe is not Islam or multiculturalism but racism and the economic and academic disadvantage that comes with it.

And, finally, Muslims are nowhere near the greatest terrorist threat. According to Europol, between 2006 and 2008 only .4 percent of terrorist plots (including attempts and fully executed attacks) in Europe were from Islamists. The lion's share (85 percent) were related to separatism. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem. But it's not on the scale or of the nature that those first out of the gate on Friday claimed it was. Put bluntly, if you have to assume anything when a bomb goes off in Europe, think region, not religion.

But there are some in Europe who are struggling to cope with the changes taking place—who are failing to integrate into changing societies and who harbor deep-seated resentments against their fellow citizens. That is a sizeable and growing section of the white population so alienated that it has once again made fascism a mainstream ideology on the continent.

In Germany the bestselling book since the Second World War by former Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin blames inbreeding among Turks and Kurds for "congenital disabilities" and argues that immigrants from the Middle East are a "genetic minus" for the country. "But the subject is usually hushed up," he wrote. "Perish the thought that genetic factors could be partially responsible for the failure of parts of the Turkish populations in the German school system."

A poll published in the national magazine Focus in September 2010 showed 31 percent of respondents agreeing that Germany is "becoming dumber" because of immigrants; 62 percent said Sarrazin's comments were "justified". In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and Italy, hard-right nationalist and anti-immigrant parties regularly receive more than 10 percent of the vote. In Finland it is 19 percent; in Norway it is 22 percent; in Switzerland, 29 percent. In Italy and Austria they have been in government; in Switzerland, where the anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party is the largest party, they still are.

Breivik was from a particularly vile strain of that trend. But he did not come from nowhere. And the anxieties that produced him are growing. Fascists prey on economic deprivation and uncertainty, democratic deficits cause by European Union membership and issues of sovereignty related to globalization. Far right forces in Greece, for example, are currently enjoying a vigorous revival. When scapegoats are needed they provide them. When solutions are demanded they are scarce.